She shrank, sprang up.His baffled hands had not even touched her.``David Hull!'' she cried, and the indignation and the repulsion in her tone and in her manner were not simulated, though her artfulness hastened to make real use of them.She loved to rouse men to frenzy.She knew that the sight of their frenzy would chill her--would fill her with an emotion that would enable her to remain mistress of the situation.
At sight of her aversion his eyes sank.``Forgive me,'' he muttered.``You make me--CRAZY.''
``I!'' she cried, laughing in angry derision.``What have I ever done to encourage you to be--impertinent?''
``Nothing,'' he admitted.``That is, nothing but just being yourself.''
``I can't help that, can I?''
``No,'' said he, adding doggedly: ``But neither can men help going crazy about you.''
She looked at him sitting there at once penitent and impenitent;and her mind went back to the thoughts that had engaged it before he came into view.Marriage-- to marry one of these men, with their coarse physical ideas of women, with their pitiful weakness before an emotion that seemed to her to have no charm whatever.
And these were the creatures who ruled the world and compelled women to be their playthings and mere appendages! Well--no doubt it was the women's own fault, for were they not a poor, spiritless lot, trembling with fright lest they should not find a man to lean on and then, having found the man, settling down into fat and stupid vacuity or playing the cat at the silly game of social position? But not Jane Hastings! Her bosom heaved and her eyes blazed scorn as she looked at this person who had dared think the touch of his coarse hands would be welcome.Welcome!
``And I have been thinking what a delightful friendship ours was,'' said she, disgustedly.``And all the time, your talk about your ambition--the speeches you were going to make--the offices you were going to hold-- the good you were going to do in purifying politics-- it was all a blind!''
``All a blind,'' admitted he.``From the first night that you came to our house to dinner--Jen, I'll never forget that dress you wore--or the way you looked in it.''
Miss Jane had thought extremely well of that toilet herself.She had heard how impervious this David Hull, the best catch in the town, was to feminine charm; and she had gone prepared to give battle.But she said dejectedly, ``You don't know what a shock you've given me.''
``Yes, I do,'' cried he.``I'm ashamed of myself.But --I love you, Jen! Can't you learn to love me?''
``I hadn't even thought of you in that way,'' said she.``Ihaven't bothered my head about marriage.Of course, most girls have to think about it, because they must get some one to support them----''
``I wish to God you were one of that sort,'' interrupted he.
``Then I could have some hope.''
``Hope of what,'' said she disdainfully.``You don't mean that you'd marry a girl who was marrying you because she had to have food, clothing and shelter?''
``I'd marry the woman I loved.Then--I'd MAKE her love me.She simply couldn't help it.''
Jane Hastings shuddered.``Thank heaven, I don't have to marry!'' Her eyes flashed.``But I wouldn't, even if I were poor.I'd rather go to work.Why shouldn't a woman work, anyhow?''
``At what?'' inquired Hull.``Except the men who do manual labor, there are precious few men who can make a living honestly and self-respectingly.It's fortunate the women can hold aloof and remain pure.''
Jane laughed unpleasantly.``I'm not so sure that the women who live with men just for shelter are pure,'' said she.
``Jen,'' the young man burst out, ``you're ambitious-- aren't you?''
``Rather,'' replied she.
``And you like the sort of thing I'm trying to do-- like it and approve of it?''
``I believe a man ought to succeed--get to the top.''
``So do I--if he can do it honorably.''
Jane hesitated--dared.``To be quite frank,'' said she, ``Iworship success and I despise failure.Success means strength.
Failure means weakness--and I abominate weakness.''
He looked quietly disapproving.``You don't mean that.You don't understand what you're saying.''
``Perfectly,'' she assured him.``I'm not a bit good.Education has taken all the namby-pamby nonsense out of me.''
But he was not really hearing; besides, what had women to do with the realities of life? They were made to be the property of men--that was the truth, though he would never have confessed it to any woman.They were made to be possessed.``And I must possess this woman,'' he thought, his blood running hot.He said:
``Why not help me to make a career? I can do it, Jen, with you to help.''
She had thought of this before--of making a career for herself, of doing the ``something'' her intense energy craved, through a man.The ``something'' must be big if it were to satisfy her;and what that was big could a woman do except through a man?
But--this man.Her eyes turned thoughtfully upon him--a look that encouraged him to go on:
``Politics interest you, Jen.I've seen that in the way you listen and in the questions you ask.''
She smiled--but not at the surface.In fact, his political talk had bored her.She knew nothing about the subject, and, so, had been as one listening to an unknown language.But, like all women, having only the narrowest range of interests herself and the things that would enable her to show off to advantage, she was used to being bored by the conversational efforts of men and to concealing her boredom.She had listened patiently and had led the conversation by slow, imperceptible stages round to the interesting personal-- to the struggle for dominion over this difficult male.
``Anyhow,'' he went on, ``no intelligent person could fail to be interested in politics, once he or she appreciated what it meant.
